SC - Chicken Feet

[Anne-Marie Rousseau]

hey from Anne-Marie

I cant speak for everywhere, but its my understanding that in some urban
areas its illegal to bury ANYTHING like that...chicken feet, dead cats,
your deceased pet hamster, your Uncle Fred, the telemarketer who wont stop
calling at dinner....ask your vet, they'll know (last time I had to put a
pet down, they explained the disposal fee to me that way)

its one of those laws that is there for a good reason but lots of people
blow it off. (improperly decomposing critters can surface after a good
rain, or enthusiastic dogs, and are then a health hazard).

To dispose of chicken feet, I really recommend throwing them away. If you
put them in your compost heap, they'll ROT. Rotting meat is a whole 'nuther
thing than decomposing vegetable matter. ugh. It will attract dogs,
raccoons, possums and rats and pose a health hazard. You could try grinding
them up, but first you'd need to boil all the meat off (stinky), then dry
'em (where are you going to put all those bones?), then grind 'em (do you
have a mill that can handle grinding bones?). If you dont have it perfectly
rendered and perfectly dried, it will rot and you're back to the situation
above. I suppose you could skin them, remove the nails, etc and use them as
a gelatin source, but I'd want them to be REALLY clean....

personally, I'd just throw 'em out...they wont take much room in your garbage!

- --AM, who raised a LOT of chickens in her misspent youth. :)

At 08:55 AM 2/14/01 -0500, you wrote:
>While we're all on the subject of chicken feet, I have an OT question.  A
couple
>of weeks ago, I called our township office to inquire about regulations for
>raising chickens in a non-commercial-agriculture setting.  The nice lady told
>me all the rules, then told me not so confidentially that unless my neighbors
>complain about something, not only will nobody know, nobody will care to come
>looking.  And, she said, they very rarely get complaints.
>
>However, she did tell me about the one complaint that they have had recently.
> Someone was burying his chicken feet and beaks in his garden, and the
neighbors
>dog was digging them up and bringing them home.  While *I* would have thought
>that the unrestrained dog digging up other peoples gardens would have been
their
>concern, apparantly I was mistaken.  She said that burying such chicken parts
>is illegal in Pennsylvania.  She didn't know why, but was so grossed out by
>the idea of beaks and feet that she didn't care.
>
>So, does anybody know why it would be illegal to bury chicken bits?  Do they
>carry notable diseases?  Short of eating them (the feet anyway,) what else
are
>you supposed to do with them?  Would they break down quickly in a compost
heap?
> But, wouldn't the compost heap count the same as burying them in the ground?
> And, I don't want to attract rats and mice to my compost heap.  Are they
easy
>to grind up to use like bone meal?  I can guarantee you I will never get my
>husband to eat the feet, and I'm trying to minimize what we get hauled away
>as trash.  So, what can I do with these parts that won't get me in trouble
with
>the law?
>
>Thanks!
>Magdalena vander Brugghe
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